Saturday, June 12, 2010

Listen to Your Yarn

Recently I bought my first laceweight yarn. I chose Knitpicks Shadow Tonal in Golden Glow. I was envisioning a bright yellow yarn like I'd seen on Ravelry but mine is more of a honeyish, marigold yellow. Still really pretty and nice but not quite the color I had in mind.
My initial thought, when I still thought it was bright yellow, was the Citron shawl, from the Winter '09 issue of Knitty. Well, first off, wrong color for citrus, secondly, do you realize there are literally over a THOUSAND STITCHES IN THAT SHAWL??!! That was just a whole heck of a lot of stitches for a novice shawl knitter like myself. That would be one of the reasons I like socks, only about 60 stitches to deal with.
Then I thought of my old favorite that I still haven't finished (can't, ran out of yarn) the Travelling Woman. The problem with that is that, technically that takes fingering, not lace. However, it can be done. I just didn't want to fiddle with that since I'd already started one and ran out of yarn.
I was gifted the Sakura lace scarf pattern for my birthday which is a lovely cherry blossom lace pattern. Still, not in my opinion, suitable for yellow. Pink or red perhaps.
Then I thought, well, screw the shawl or scarf, let's make mitts. I found a gorgeous pattern called Swan Maiden Mitts and it is even meant for KP Shadow! But, hey, back up here, my only coat is black. Well, black generally goes with everything but one of the reasons I didn't want a scarf is that I'm not fond of the yellow/black combo. Mitts would be the same problem. Sooo, back to the design board.
A shawl called Hibiscus gave me an idea, I'd design one myself using a pineapple as the focus! Well, I did that on paper. Then attempted to draw the design on graph paper. That didn't work out so well, plus I was worried about running out of yarn halfway thru the shawl.
After hunting around for a few weeks I found this - the Annis shawl, one of the "surprises" in the Spring & Summer issue of Knitty. It is absolutely perfect for this yarn, going to look like a slice 'o sunshine, great because it is always over 100 degrees now!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i ;m so confused. lol love ya!

Arlene Mobley said...

Sarah the sweater you made for Addison is beautiful! Now you need to make her a matching headband with a big flower on it!

arlene